The Asp and the Scorpion
by Ziria NightRose
Summary: Albus Severus Potter will not be a Slytherin. He won't. And as he travels to Hogwarts for the first time as a student, he meets a boy who also doesn't want to be a Slytherin. Thus begins the most unlikely friendship ever. Who knew you could bond with a Death Eater's son over Chocolate Frogs and Exploding Snap? One-Shot for now, maybe a full story later.


As the scarlet steam engine pulled out of the station and followed the track around a curve, Albus took one last look at his family before the Hogwarts Express pulled them out of his sight. His sister's face was gleaming with tears of sadness. She would have no one her age to play with at home, save for their cousin Hugo, until Al and James came home again. His mother had a sad smile on her face. Another of her precious sons was leaving the nest, and she looked both joyful and sad at the thought. Al saved his father for last. His father, the Boy-Who-Lived, looked so proud of Al, and so _normal_ that Al almost forgot that he was more famous than any eleven year old deserved to be.  
Al craned his neck a little more, desperate to fix this image in his memory. This would be the last time he saw his parents and sister until December.

"Move it Al, I want to see Mom and Dad too! Just because you're going to be a slimy Slytherin…"

"I won't be a Slytherin James!" Al said, pushing his brother away, "I won't!"

"Well you don't have to hog the window and act like one either you know", James chuckled and shook his head. "And you never know…well, I can't see the station any more anyway, so have fun looking at the sheep and the Muggles while I go sit in my _compartment _with my _friends_. Smell 'ya later Albus Severus!" James gave a cheery little wave and skipped off.  
Al clenched his fists. His older brother could be so annoying sometimes, but he was right. Al needed to go back to the compartment where his dad had dumped his trunk. Hopefully nobody else had stolen it, because Al had to vent to Rose, and didn't want anyone to hear him complain about his brother.  
As Al pushed his way through the corridor (occasionally mumbling sorry to an older student whose foot he had trodden on), he became increasingly aware of a commotion at the end of the train. The end of the train that happened to be where his luggage was.  
When Al reached his compartment he cautiously opened the door to peek inside, only to be greeted by his cousin's mane of bushy red hair in his face.

"Make him _leave_ Al, oooh, I can't stand him already! Make him _leave_! He said that he was here first, but-"

"Who?" said Al stupidly.

"Him!"Rose jabbed her finger at a pale face boy sitting on Al's seat. "Make him leave. Tell him that I, I mean, we, were here first."

Al ignored his cousin in favor of surveying the boy. His strikingly blonde hair and casual smirk triggered something in Al's memory.

"You're Scorpius! Scorpius Malfoy!"

The pale boy flinched at the mention of his name, but nodded and stood up.

"And you're Albus Potter" he said coolly, holding out his hand, "Pleased to meet you."

Al was stunned by his civility. His Uncle Ron seemed to talk endlessly about Draco Malfoy and his "slimy evil butt", and how the two had been mortal enemies back when they had been at Hogwarts. Al expected that his son would be the same, but he didn't look evil at all. His pale hair lay flat on his head, very unlike Al's hair, which was black and _never_ seemed to lie flat because of something his father had called "genetics". Scorpius's robes were immaculate, not a stitch out of place. It seemed that although the Malfoy's family name had lost its value, their gold did not. Scorpious was obviously well off.

"Happy to meet you too Scorpius, and please, call me Al." Al glanced meaningfully at his cousin. Rose gave a little huff and, not even looking up to meet his eyes, said "Oh alright, hi _Malfoy"._ She turned to face Al. "Can he leave now? I need to tell you something!"

Al opened his mouth to respond, but Scorpius beat him to it.

"Oh, give it rest! Everywhere else is full! What am I supposed to do, sit on the floor in the corridor by myself?"

"Yes!"

"Rose…"

"Your_ father _was an evil man who deserved to go to Azkaban, and you're evil too! You have no right to speak to me! I'm going to beat you in every test, and every one will see that Malfoys are all stupid, slimy, evil, DEATH EATERS!"

"Rose…"

"Shut it Al"

"But…"

"Albus Severus Potter, I. Said. Shut It!"

"Is something the matter in here?"

Rose glared at the tall girl who opened the door of the compartment. "It's really none of your business."

"Actually, it is." The girl pointed to her chest. "I'm a Slytherin Prefect, and I could hear you all the way from the first carriage. So could everybody else, and if I hear you yelling again I'll find a way to make sure that you never set foot in Gryffindor tower Miss Weasley, and wouldn't that be a shame?

Rose gasped as the girls turned on her heels and walked out of the carriage shouting to some third years as she went ("Johnson! Richards! I thought I told you two that Fanged Flyers were banned!").

Rose sat down heavily on the leather seat and stared blankly out the window. "Can she even do that? Make sure that I never…" her voice trailed into a whisper. "She has to be lying, she must be". Rose sat there mumbling to herself and pulled one of her textbooks out of her bag, flipping through it hurriedly. The two boys sitting on the other side of the compartment stared in shock at her abrupt change in emotion.

"Yeah…" said Al, giving a nervous glance at his cousin, "Her whole family is famous for their tempers. You should see her brother, Hugo. He's normally so quiet that you forget he's there, but if you insult Lily, that's my sister by the way, he goes absolutely crazy. He's more protective of her than I am, and I'm her brother!" Al smiled. "She's a bit of a nut, but really, she's normally a nice enough girl…if you don't make her angry…or make fun of her hair…or upstage her in any way… er…" Al bit his lip, trying to think of something to say to divert the conversation away from his embarrassing family. "So…you got any siblings?"

"No." said Scorpius shortly, "My Dad filled his "_obligation"_. I will carry on the family name whether I want to or not. He has no use for a house full of children that don't do anything but waste both money and space." Scorpius looked at Al's shocked face and quickly added, "Of course, he's never _said_ that, but the way he looks at me, I can tell that he only had me for one reason, and it wasn't because he wanted me"

Both boys stared awkwardly out the window until the candy trolley rolled up to their door.

"Anything of the trolley dear?"

Soon, the floor of the compartment was littered with Chocolate Frog wrappers, half eaten Every Flavor Jelly Beans (many of them grass or vomit flavored), and almost a hundred collectable Famous Wizards and Witches cards. Rose had left five minutes after they started swapping cards, presumably to find some girls to talk to.

"I heard you talking to your dad on the platform."

Al's head shot up. "What?"

"Your dad? You know…" he handed Al a Famous Wizard card. "Your dad."

"Oh." Al looked at his father's face, which was smiling warmly up at him from the moving portrait. Slightly embarrassed by his father's popularity, Al blushed. "So…what brought this up?"

"I heard him say something. Something about how you don't want to be in a certain house…" Scorpius trailed off awkwardly, as if he hadn't meant to say what had been on his mind the whole train ride.

Al's face turned red as he remembered one important fact about his new friend's family history.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it! There's really nothing wrong with Slytherin…Honestly! I didn't…"

"It's fine. I'm not sure I want to be one either."

Al tried to stop his jaw from dropping but failed, miserably.

"And to be honest, I'm not sure my father wants me to be one either. He'll never say it, but I know he's ashamed of his action during the war. It's too late to fix his reputation, but not too late to build mine. He thinks that being a Slytherin will turn me into the boy _he_ used to be. Cowardly. I don't blame him either, it's true. His whole family was cowards. That whole side of the _war _was cowards. If I want to restore the family name, I'm going to have to do something my father never did, and break tradition." He smiled. "And being friends with The Boy- Who- Lived's son should do as a start."

Al smiled too. "And I want to show people that I'm not just a carbon copy of my father. Being friends with a Death Eater's son should do as a start."

Both boys held out their hands and shook to their new friendship. "Now let's stop all this mushy girl talk and play some Exploding Snap! I've got some cards packed in my trunk!" Al shouted, and Scorpius nodded. It looked like he was already following a different path than his father. He couldn't imagine his father ever playing Exploding Snap.  
Al was surprised when the conductor announced that they were approaching the castle. Neither of the boys had noticed the darkening sky, focused on their candy and card games. They quickly pulled on black school robes and waited anxiously while the train slowed to a halt. They left their trunks and owls in the compartment as they were told to, and stepped off the train to the sight of hundreds of students milling around. The older students headed to horse-less carriages while the first-years were rounded up in front of a huge man whom Albus recognized as Rubeus Hagrid, one of his father's oldest friends, in more way than one.

"Al right there Al?" he called down to him as he waved some timid first-years toward him "How's yer dad an' mum? An' James and Lily? I've not seen yer family in a while, there's a few unicorn foals sick, an' I've been takin' care of em." His chest puffed out proudly, and Al blushed, because now every eye was on him.

"I'm fine Hagrid, and so is everyone else. I expect you'll be seeing James soon…Oh! Here's Rose!" Al grabbed his cousin's arm and pushed her in front of him. While Hagrid was distracted by his cousin, he and Scorpius snuck to the back of the group.  
In what seemed like no time at all, the first-years were crammed four to a boat and they set of across a great big lake, sparkling with the reflection of the stars in the cloudless sky. A large number of gasps and yells were accompanied by their first sight of Hogwarts. It was indeed magnificent; a towering castle perched on a high cliff overlooking the lake. Even Al, who had visited the castle before, (last year, after his brother took a hard fall during a Quidditch game and broke his left leg and two ribs) was stunned.  
It was as if someone had put a spell on Al. Seeing the sight of the castle, seeing how magical it was, he was no longer afraid of the sorting. He was nervous, but not afraid. He would handle whatever life threw at him, whether that life started in Gryffindor or not.

I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this or not. If I do it will not be on a consistant schedule. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
